~ open letter to All Things Considered [w],
You featured a commentary, ‘Insurgent Violence vs. Terrorism in Iraq’ by Anisa Mehdi in which she expressed, in a supercilious, condescending manner, her belief that participants in the conflict in Iraq are incorrectly referred to as ‘insurgents’; she states that they should be labeled as ‘terrorists’. Her claim hinges on the superficial similarities in appearance of how the conflict is waged, not on the source of anger or intention of the participants; by painting a portrait of scary gunmen attacking children in our schools, she intends to have us agree that any horrific act waged by one person against another should be labeled ‘terrorism’. This is a short-sighted interpretation of the motivation for violence; a school, for example, can be attacked by foreign Islamic jihadists, by domestic survivalists, or by disaffected loner with no discernible purpose.
Ms. Mehdi seems to miss the fact that insurgency is a movement while terrorism is a tactic. Insurgents are made by the notion that they are rebelling against an authority, be it a government or an occupation by a foreign army, regardless of how they work towards that goal; terrorists can have a panoply of ideologies, but what ties them together as terrorists are the methods by which they seek to achieve these various goals. Insurgents can utilize terror—bombing a hotel housing foreign media—or they can engage regular forces—mortars and firefights against U.S. Marines.
In other words, an insurgency can contain terrorists, but it is not equivalent to terrorism. Insurgents are defined by the end they seek, while terrorists are defined by their means; these notions are sometimes intertwined, but quite often exclusive. George Washington’s Continental Army would be considered insurgents by any party involved: British, French, or American; I presume Ms. Mehdi sees the distinction between these men and terrorists.
What is more discouraging than Ms. Mehdi’s misunderstanding of insurgency and terrorism is her repetition of the meme, which has been disproved – even disavowed, with a wink and a nod, by the administration which pushed the notion from the beginning—that the war against the people in Iraq is a retaliation for the attacks by al Qaeda on the United States; in her own words, Ms. Mehdi claims that the United States has ‘avenged’ the 9/11 attacks with its war in Iraq. Facts on the ground and even reports by the CIA have stated repeatedly that there was no connection between Iraq and the attacks on 9/11/01, and yet, four years later, there is a commentator on your show, repeating this falsehood.
-the angry red planet, Philadelphia, PA
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'john' responds:
roger sherman would be proud of your strategy v. tactic competency!
27 October 2005 _ 10h49m33 EST [link]
public response: